The Daily Background

One of the mini-scandals that has arisen from the US Attorney purge scandal investigation is the matter of missing email messages, and possible violations of federal law which requires presidential records to be preserved. The House Committee on Oversight and Government reform, headed by Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), has issued a report saying:

The Committee has obtained evidence of potentially extensive violations of the Presidential Records Act by senior White House officials. During President Bush’s first term, momentous decisions were made, such as the decision to go to war in Iraq. Yet many e-mail communications during this period involving the President’s most senior advisors, including Karl Rove, were destroyed by the RNC. These violations could be the most serious breach of the Presidential Records Act in the 30-year history of the law.

It’s my recollection that the Presidential Records Act, which prevents White House records from being destroyed to cover stuff up, was one of the many provisions passed by Congress in the wake of Watergate, and all the revelations that followed in the years after that scandal. In terms of paralells between this Administration and Nixon’s, it’s ironic how many of these types of specific post-Nixon laws that Congress created that this Administration law broken (FISA is another famous example of these).

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